The pReview Re-viewing of..
The Bourne Legacy
(it is highly recommended to view the trailer and THEN read)
(warning: (redacted))
by: Jeff Finck
written: 6/4/2012
Release Date: August 3, 2012
The premise: In the beginning, God said, "Let there be light." And it was good. Skip ahead a bit and on the seventh day, when God rested, dinosaurs started fucking shit up. On the eighth day, God said, "Let there be Bourne." And he killed all of the dinosaurs with a rolled up newspaper. And it was good. God went on a vacation after that and the government decided to try to kill Jason Bourne and instead got directly mucked the fuck up by one man's vengeance and irritability. And guns and karate. In a parallel universe (I mean storyline), Kenneth Gidson (I mean Aaron Cross) ((I mean Jeremy Renner)) is tagged a loose end when Edward Norton (I mean Agent Byer) deems the newest elite agent program (Operation Outcome) too dangerous to simply close. The decision to shut down Outcome comes to a head and Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz go on the run because the government, in its infinite movie wisdom, decides to just try and kill everyone involved. You know, instead of just asking them all nicely to resign.
The trailer jumps off in a terrifying nightmare world where a scar-faced Aaron Cross is being interviewed by Freddy Krueger (I assume) and in the big reveal moment-- AKA: The first 4 seconds of the trailer-- Cross recalls his real name as being Kenneth Gidson. BOOM! Trigger the spring awake (slash) torn hero moment where Cross springs awake.. Like a torn hero. Upon awakening, he remembers that he's just a regular old secret agent (slash) patriot who knows how to kill stuff good. And then backs it all up by martial art-ing some douchebags in bad suits.
Rachel Weisz enters the scene as Stephanie Snyder.. Sorry, DOCTOR Stephanie Snyder. I know that she's a doctor because she is wearing rubber gloves and a white coat. She is shown tending to Cross' hand who I assume injured it in some sort of sniper battle somehow, because he is then shown having some sort of sniper battle with an unknown assailant. I also assume that the battle is with someone who is jealous of his hand modeling skills. I assume a lot. I'm realllllllly good at assuming things.
The screen flashes: “There was never just one.” I assume they mean "never just one" of anything EXCEPT highly skilled death merchants under the guise of field agents in these movies, because if the big surprise at this point in the series is that there is more than one agent, that’s about as obvious as the fucking sun exploding. Some people way above my pay grade start underselling Aaron Cross' abilities, saying things like, "Never seen evaluations like this" and showing Cross shooting nails at people with fire extinguishers and that he’s proving to be "Treadstone without the inconsistency".. Whatever that means. I do know that they say that Jason Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg, implying that Aaron Cross is the rest of the iceberg.. So, you know, just one more thing to blame on Bourne.
Later, a bearded Cross seems to be stationed up in the mountains with another agent. In a twist of serendipitous fate, he even winds up sleeping in the same bunk as the wily Jason Bourne! Albeit way after, but Bourne carved his name into it, so, like, if he wanted it back and Cross said, "I don't see your name on it" then Bourne can say, "Yeah huh! It's right there!" Because they're children. Actually, a whole spy movie starring just children is generally a bad idea. No worse an idea than a spy movie starring just animals, though.
Things go to Threat Level Midnight when Agent Byer (Ed Norton) is told that Bourne is in Manhattan! Oh no! Rouse Washington! Break out the news vans! Have armed tactical teams storm down public streets in broad day light! Someone tell Scott Glenn to get a tan! Kill Paddy Considine (Again, apparently)! He knows too much! Look out Dallas-Fort Worth: It looks like you might get hail!
Agents start falling like a ton of uranium on Jupiter. (That's a science joke! The more you know!) Byer seems to start covering his tracks and enacts the Ghost Protocol of the Bourne universe.. So, like, a Ghost.. Ultimatum.. Or Supremacy.. Or something. They even try to missile-fuck Cross, but he escapes at the last second by, what looks like, accident. As agents start dropping, so too must the doctors. Dr. Snyder watches in horror as Mr. Cleary from School Ties starts capping her colleagues. Clever girl that she is, she hides under a desk after making eye contact. Luckily for her, this breaks eye contact with him and, unfortunately for him, that is the only way he can hunt!
The rest of the trailer is Cross rescuing Dr. Snyder and murdilating the ball sack out of every living thing that comes near him that doesn't look like this:
In the finale, it is leaked to us that Cross has had alterations over the years to his genetic make-up that makes him a nightmare for people like you. We learn that apparently Outcome is an anagram for Gattaca and that this is all some crazy modern day prequel to some other MAtt Damon movie.. Like Titan A.E. or Contagion or Elysium, or.. I don’t know.. Mystic Pizza! (I realize that Outcome isn't an anagram for Gattaca.. It just sounded way better than "Cute Moo." And I realize that this couldn't possibly be a prequel to Mystic Pizza. That shit stands alone as THE greatest movie about magical Italian circular flat bread ever.
So all in all, I cannot wait to see this! The newly formed Operation Outcome (Which replaces Operation Blackbriar, which replaced Operation Treadstone.. Which, I assume, replaced Operation Newsreel.. Which was an equally, horribly thought-through idea) is yet another program that develops young psychopaths and turns them into conditioned psychopaths.. But this time, will be different! And fan-effing-tastic! The only drag is that the only thing that these movies really get into about the programs is that they keep dumping guys onto the streets to get back at the guys that escape their programs. I mean, I guess you don’t need much more plot than that, but we’ll see about this one. I assume that the final scene of the trailer is some kind of an homage to 127 Hours.. But something tells that we're not going to see two straight hours of Jeremy Renner stuck between a wall and Rachel Weisz.